moonslav59

Is the alternative any better? You can shout for a regime change or for JH to spend more, but that's not anything that is likely to happen. What can Brez do now, with a limited budget?

Tolle and Early may start the season in AAA and might be the best one-two pitching prospects in any farm system. Both are ML ready and actually have some experience there. Dobbins and Harrison graduated recently. We have a ton of young pitchers under control for many years. I'm not for trading away a bunch of them. I do think we can trade 1-2 that are not at the top of any list in a package for a bat. I'm fine with trading away another 1-2 for an established pitcher with 2+ years of control or 1 with a sure extension to follow. We will have to convert some SP'ers to RP'ers or start the season with too many pitchers on the 40. By age... With MLB experience (10 SP'ers/ 7 w 3 or more years to go) 22 Tolle 5+ years of control 23 Early 5+ 23 Harrison 5 25 Dobbins 5 26 Bello 5 year contract 26 Crochet 6 year contract 27 Oviedo 2 arbs 29 Crawford 3 arbs 29 Sandoval 1 36 Gray 1-2 yrs RP'ers 27 Slaten 4 yrs 28 Moran 5 28 Hicks 2 29 Whitlock (1), 30 Weissert (4) & Kelly (4), 37 Chapman (2) ______________________________ No MLB experience (5+ years) 7 SP'ers at age 23 or older 17 Delzine 19 Valera, Fajardo & Cason 21 Witherspoon, Phillips 22 Aita 23 Holobetz & Monegro 24 Sandlin 25 Bennett 26 Mullins, Samaniego, Uberstine & Drohan 28 Watson

Murakami to CWS for $34M/2. I was not for signing this guy, but it is another 2 year deal off the boards.

Once again, you miss the point. They'd have to take them for me to make that trade- hence, it's not happening.

I find it interesting that we are about as far away from the NYY and the TBR, in terms of % spent. I think we were one of 7 teams that went over the tax line, so maybe a shift upwards is underway. If we'd stop making so much money, we could move up on this list! LOL>

Masa, Hicks, Rafaela, Crawford & Arias for Eovaldi and Seager. Sign Okamoto or Suarez. Sign Refsnyder. 1. L Anthony CF 2. R Okamoto 1B 3. L Duran LF 4. L Seager SS 5. R Story SS 6. L Abreu RF 7. L Yoshida/ R Refsnyder DH 8. L Mayer/ R Romy 3B 9. R Narvaez C SP: Crochet, Nate, Gray, Bello, Oviedo/Sandoval Seager is owed $31m x 6 years ($31M AAV) Nate is owed $25M and $20M ($22.5M AAV) Total AAV: 53.5M x 2, then $31M for 4 more years. Yoshida is owed $18M x 2 ($18M AAV) Hicks is owed $12M x 2 ($12M AAV) Rafaela is owed $48M/6 ($8M AAV) and Crawford might get $2.5M in arb for 2026. Total: $40M for a couple years, then just Rafaela & Crawford. Net gain on the Sox Lux Tax budget is just +$13M for a couple years. ($23M for 4 more.)

You may end up being right, but I'm doubting it. Two winters ago, we signed Criswell and traded Sale for Grissom, Dugo for Fitts & Weisert and Robertson/Santos for O'Neill in December. We signed Giolito January 3rd. We did sign hendriks in FEB. Last winter, we signed Wilson in November, Chapman in mid December and Buehler for $21M at the end of DEC. We signed Sandoval in DEC. We also traded for Narvaez & others in DEC. Only Breggie was a late signing. It's really not a pattern.

I have my doubts on that. Many decent 3Bmen become fine 1Bmen. It's very rare when the look worse at 1B, even though they are usually older or very old. Anyway, I can't imagine anyone worse than Casas.

I think the Lux Tax resets with a new CBA, so I don't think it matters much.

The final four is set: 2 Ohio St. vs 10 Miami (12/31) 9 Alabama vs 1 Indiana (1/1) 5 Oregon vs 4 Texas Tech (1/1) 6 Ole Miss vs 3 Georgia (1/1) I'm going with Ohio St, Indiana, Texas Tech & then Ole Miss with the upset. OSU>> Texas Tech Indiana >> Ole Miss Ohio St over Indiana

Joe who?

Well, Casas is about as bad on defense as any 1Bman in MLB, so he could still be an upgrade. (Casas might be our DH sooner than we think.) If he's okay at 3B defense, I'm wondering why he sucks at 1B. The option may be E Suarez, who is not great at 3B, but should be okay at 1B, if needed there. He might take a 2 year deal of with a mutual option 3rd year or opt out after 1 and or 2 years.

I'm not as high on DHam and a certain poster thinks, but I know many teams would want him as their sub. He's pretty good at 2B defense. He's a great PR'er. He can probably be oaky vs RHPs, but that is not for sure. With Romy looking like he may morph into a FT player at 2B or 1B, maybe we don't need DHam as a platoon, but he's nice insurance. Too bad his SS defense is really bad. The metrics shows he's better than I think he is: 3.6 bWAR 2024-2025 (511 PAs) 14 HRs/55 SBs 1.7 fWAR is still not too bad. (That's top 30 in MLB among 2Bmen) Complaining about a sub with numbers like that seems silly.

I'm thinking we may just sign one guy: Okamoto. He can play 3B or 1B, so he allows for a number of scenarios to develop: If Casas is healthy and doing well: 1B Casas 2B Mayer/Romy 3B Okamoto SS Story If Casas is not ready: 1B: Okamoto/Romy v L 2B: Romy FT or v L/DHam 3B: Mayer v R/Romy or Okamoto v L SS: Story Maybe we add a FA RP and/or #2 SP via trade. (Rafaela or Duran)

Gio was not signed while injured. Perhaps there is a 2 year jinx, but that one wasn't planned. The Jansen & Chris Martin 2 year deals worked well, but that was Bloom. The 2024 Ref signing to 2 years worked very well, but let's not discuss good 2 year deals. It is a bummer that these are the only deals we have done, recently. I hope we break the mold.

Like who?

Remaining top FAs (ranked by MLBTR) 1. Tucker OF (no chance) 2. Bichette 2B/SS (fat chance) 4. Murakami 3B/1B (Hmmm) 5. Bregman 3B (maybe) 6. Valdez SP (nope) 7. Imai SP (only if we trade 2-3 pitchers) 8. Bellinger OF/1B (nope) 10. Ranger Suarez SP (not likely) 15. Gallen SP (nope) 19. Okamoto 3B/1B (might be our best chance at a top 20 FA) 20. Suarez 3B (1B?) Maybe? 22. Imanaga SP, 24 Bassitt SP, 27 Giolito (longshots) 29. Realmuto C (I hope not.) 30. O'Hearn 1B/DH/OF & 34. Arraez 1B (doubt it) 33. N Martinez SP, 35 Littell SP & 38 Verlander (maybe on 1 yr deal) 43 S Dominguez RP, 44 Fairbanks (maybe?) N/R J Wilson RP, Hoskins 1B, Moncada 3B/2B, Refsnyder OF

They'd have to take Masa and maybe Hicks.

At their cost, just sign Bregman and Suarez.

It will take more than Castro, so maybe we can give them 2 SP'ers- maybe two from Drohan, Sandlin, Mullins & Uberstine... LOL. (I doubt all 4 get him.)

2 years is not too long for JH. Nate has a pretty decent injury history, so that fits the model, too. That being said, he is a #1/#2 when healthy, for sure. Wonder what the return would have to be.

I'm driving the add 2 bats bandwagon.

I don't want to trade young pitching either, but two points: 1. If JH won't spend, and we can wish he does all we want, but if it doesn't happen, now, why will it happen when these young studs mature? Why wish for a future that looks the same as now? 2. We have a ton of ML ready Sp'ers and a ton or promising to very promising pitching prospects. I think we can afford to trade a couple. Just hope the next one is not the next Priester. Crochet, Gray & Bello are needed. We can afford to trade 2 or even 3 from this group, especially if we get a better pitcher in return: Oviedo, Crawford, Harrison, Dobbins, Uberstine, Drohan, Sandlin I'd try very hard to not trade Tolle or Early, and maybe not Witherspoon, Fajardo and Valera, too, but we can afford to trade 1 from that group of 3. I say that because I have faith that 2-3 from this next group moves up to where those three are, now: Bennett, Holobetz, Phillips, Eyanson, Mullins, Watson, Samaniego, Delzine, Monegro, Aita, Cason or a few others. We barely have slots for all these guys in rotations across the minors. We need to identify the keepers, do a better job than we did with Priester and do something bold. We have to give to get. We need to move from quantity to quality as we are smack dab in the middle of a promising window. I'm not for trading away the future, but we can mortgage some of it. I'm not for trading them away for one and done players, either. Again, waiting for JH to open up his wallet might be pointless and a waste of our thoughts and talks. I'd love for that to be our focus, but I'm not hopeful it will be. The only other way to build this team up another notch is by trades. Trading DHam, Wong and Hicks isn't getting us what we need.

There don't seem to be any 1 year Bregman type deals out there, but we have seen Polanco and M Kelly sign 2 year deals and H-S Kim to a 1 year deal. Any of those three could have helped, and my guess is more will sign for 1-2 years, but yes, not the top-of-the-line FAs. IMO, we needed 2-3 major additions, and perhaps Gray sort of filled one. Polanco might have sort of filled another. Is there another Polanco? Maybe Suarez signs for 2 years. He's been good for a while and never gets the long deal. Could Bichette not like the top offer and sign a show me, one year deal or something like Bregman's deal with an opt out after year 1? Maybe the 5 years on Marte's deal keeps us from offering the best package, but I'm certain he will be traded. To me, he is the top prize remaining- warts and all. I'm not sure if they want Duran, Rafaela or Campbell as the centerpiece. Maybe a third team can create the same effect. I would not add Tolle or Early to the package, but I'd offer two from Bennett, Oviedo, Crawford, Harrison, Dobbins, and either Witherspoon, Fajardo or Valera (maybe not both.) I understand that my habit of throwing more lesser players is not usually the winning offer, but we have to keep our best players and prospects.

That very well could be the case, and it's understandable. The one certain fact is that we never feel like we value the best FAs, financially as much as others do, unless they are willing to take one or two year deals. That puts us in a box. We've rarely been successful with these shorter deals, and even the biggest success story, Bregman, only played 114 games. (Okay, Chapman was a big one year success, but that was kind of surprising.) The last big FA signing had us rumored as bidding against only ourselves and way overpaying for Yoshida. The one before that, Trevor Story, was largely seen as a precursor to replacing Bogey, but nevertheless, it was a pretty large and long deal. Not top of the line, but pretty big and pretty long. The Sale extension and Nate resigning were the last somewhat large and long deals signed, until the Devers & Crochet extensions. I may be wishful thinking here, and maybe it's actually a dumb idea, but I think this could and should be the winter we break the mold and splurge on a quality player for 3 or more years and $20-25M+ a year- maybe even 4 x $25-29M or 5 x $20-26M. The history argues against such signings, but the history of winning teams shows most have one or more of these deals on their budget. My hopes are as follows (in order): 1. We trade for Marte (hopefully not Tolle or Early.) 2. We sign Bregman. 3. We sign Suarez. (Two of these 3 would be nice, as we could then trade Mayer & Rafaela/Duran for an ace.) 4. Trade for an ace OR SOLID #2. (Maybe sign Ranger Suarez) (Bichette is a distant 5th, and I'd rather we just trade for Donovan, Contreras, Murphy or Y Diaz types as consolation prizes.)